L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 32 L'Italo-Americano SEATTLE ITALIAN COMMUNITY T he camera loved Nico- letta Machiavelli, a sultry, dark-haired Italian beauty best known for her roles in the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s. She co-starred with such screen favorites as Marcello Mas- troianni, Burt Reynolds, David McCallum and Dan Duryea. How did this glamorous and beautiful Italian actress— a direct descendant of the famous philoso- pher and author Niccolò Machi- avelli after whom she was named— end up in Seattle teach- ing Italian? Just like a suspenseful movie, her life took many twists and turns as it unfolded over the years. Born in 1944 in the country- side near Modena, Machiavelli was the daughter of an Italian father from Florence and an American mother of Scotch-Irish descent. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved to Florence, where Nico- letta studied painting at the presti- gious Academy of Fine Arts. When she was 17, she was dis- covered by a talent agent from Rome. It was a win-win situation: The talent scout realized that her stunning beauty was perfect for the large screen, and the teenager saw that a career in the movies could be her ticket to fame, for- tune and fun. This was the era of the spaghetti westerns, a film genre made wildly popular under the skillful hand of Italian director Sergio Leone. More than 600 European westerns, or spaghetti westerns, were made between 1960 and 1978. The most famous of these were the films starring Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name. RITA CIPALLA Great Britain and Greece. In 1973, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son Nirjo, her only child. When Nirjo was seven, she reconnected with a childhood friend, Pietro, and the two mar- ried. The family moved to Los Angeles where Pietro became a sign painter and Machiavelli started to work as a tour guide, leading French and Italian visi- tors on tours of the western Unit- ed States. Since this was primari- ly a seasonal job, she began to teach Italian during the winter months. By the late 1980s, unsettled by southern California earth- quakes, the family moved to Seattle where Machiavelli contin- ued to give Italian lessons. It was this connection that brought her in contact with Giuseppe Tas- sone, a lecturer and language coordinator at the University of Washington and the long-time director of the Italian language program at the Dante Alighieri Society of Washington. "Nicoletta was interested in teaching at the Dante Alighieri Society," said Tassone. "From the first moment, I thought she would be a great fit for our pro- gram. She had a love of the Ital- ian language, an interesting life as an actress and a passion for travel. Plus she had experience teaching Italian to private indi- viduals and small groups." Machiavelli taught at the Dante Alighieri Society, Bellevue College and the University of Washington. She expanded her tour business, now taking small groups from the Northwest to Italy, touring one region at a time with a focus on food and art. And she started teaching cooking. "Probably as every immigrant, I had an urge to replicate what I remembered of the foods I grew up with," she said in a 2015 inter- view in Bellevue College Maga- zine. For Machiavelli, this meant the simple flavorful foods of Tus- cany. Machiavelli viewed her career choices as simply different facets of the same skill set. "Acting, tour-guiding and teaching are all creative in the same way," she said. "It's all about telling stories, sharing experiences and passions in an effort to enrich people's lives." Although her marriage to Pietro broke up in 1992 (he later moved to Bali), Machiavelli chose to stay put in the North- west, believing it was the best place to raise her son. She died on Nov. 15, 2015, at the age of 71, following a short illness. "It was a shock when I dis- covered that Nicoletta had passed away," said Tassone. "I remem- bered her as professional and car- ing with a great sense of humor. But most of all, I loved that she spoke beautiful Italian that showed her Florentine roots." Italian-born actress Nicoletta Machiavelli appeared in many spaghetti westerns during the 1960s and 1970s. Although Machiavelli never played opposite Eastwood, she was cast in quite a few films of this genre. Her big break came in 1965 when she was signed to a contract by producer Dino de Laurentiis to play a Native Amer- ican maid in "Navajo Joe." This film had Burt Reynolds in the lead, oddly cast as a Navajo war- rior who seeks revenge for the murder of his entire tribe. Machiavelli later appeared in other Italian westerns with such forgettable titles as "A Minute to Pray," "A Second to Die" and "No Room to Die." In 1968, she received top billing in the west- ern "Garter Colt," which was a rare achievement for a woman actress in that genre and during that era. In a review of "A Minute to Pray" and "A Second to Die," a New York Times film critic called them "two Italian-made movies, totaling over three hours of misery." The reviewer goes on to describe Machiavelli as a "comely, half-starved brunette." By the 1970s, Machiavelli had moved on to other films, working alongside some of the movie world's top international stars, including Marcello Mastroianni in the comedy "Dirty Weekend" (1973) and Alain Delon in "Someone is Bleeding" (1974). In all, she starred in nearly 40 movies between 1965 and 1983. "I wasn't a good actress," she said in a 2009 interview. "I was just pretty. I liked being outdoors but I hated it when they dressed me up or put makeup on me. And I hated the idea that these people were making money off me." But the money she earned opened doors for the actress. Machiavelli soon started to travel the world: India, South America, Nicoletta Machiavelli: from Italian movie star to Seattle language teacher

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